


A Treatise on the Price of Sugar in the Edo Period (1603-1867)

by Sintari (OriginalSintari)



Category: Samurai Champloo
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:04:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalSintari/pseuds/Sintari
Summary: Nothing can be too good for you if you never wanted it anyway.





	

_I only want to hear you purr and to hear you moan,_

_You have another man who brings the money home,_

_I don’t want dishes in the sink,_

_Don’t ask me what I feel or what I think._

 

_Tom Waits, “Everything Goes to Hell”_

 

“Mugen! That’s revolting!” That was Fuu. Jin had merely grunted, but Mugen caught his derisive, side-long glance. The whore hadn’t seemed to think his suggestion was revolting at all until the brothel owner discovered that most of the koban in his fat purse were actually river rocks. They had a brief bout of fun when the old guy’s goons chased them through an alley, but they were out of breath before Mugen even considered drawing his sword.

They walked on, looking for food or work or just an overhang to shelter them from the spitting rain. Once in a while Fuu lifted the hem of her pretty kimono to avoid a mud puddle, like she wasn’t just some serving girl from a little town in the middle of nowhere. Mugen noticed Jin doing the same thing, though more surreptitiously. Mugen just slogged through, gaining muddy toes for his lack of effort.

His feet were black by the time they came to a rickety stand with a long queue in front of it. All three of their stomachs responded to the smell of food by growling loudly.

“Soup Kitchen,” Fuu read the stand’s sign slowly. “What’s a soup kitchen?”

An old woman in the line turned to her. “Every year on his daughter’s birthday our daimyo provides free soup to the poor and elderly peasants who have served him faithfully.” It was true that everyone in the queue appeared nearly as hungry and ragged as they themselves did. Most were elderly, and Mugen couldn’t turn his head without catching glimpses of wrinkles or walking canes or decayed teeth. Balancing on her cane, the old woman stood on tiptoes to peer into the stand. “I was late this year though, and I’m afraid it’s almost gone. Oh dear. I was hoping to bring some home for my grandchildren.”

Mugen jumped in line behind the old woman, scratching his belly and declaring, “Free food? Good enough for me.”

Fuu grabbed his dirty sleeve. “This isn’t for us. These people need this soup more than we do.” Mugen glanced at Jin, who did what he did best, which was appearing to be distantly removed from the situation while wiping his glasses off on the sleeve of his kimono. “There isn’t even enough to go around,” Fuu persisted.

Mugen yanked his sleeve out of her hand. “Then I guess I’ll have to cut in line.”

“Mugen!” he heard her yell disgustedly after him. But that night, as they made camp underneath a red-leafed Maple tree, his belly was full while those two went to sleep wet and hungry. If Mugen were a contemplative kind of guy, which he wasn’t and didn’t want to be, he would conclude that that was the difference between them. You can’t eat honor with a little wasabi and soy sauce.

It started happening the next day.  Fuu, the clumsy bitch, tripped on her own sandal (“It was a frog! It just hopped away before you saw it!”) and Jin effortlessly caught her against his chest. They held the pose for a moment before Jin set her roughly on her feet. Mugen seized the opportunity to scratch at a flea bite on his stomach. Those two were both too busy blushing and avoiding one another’s eyes to yell at him for bad manners, for once.

They camped in an abandoned hut that night and Jin was late returning from a trip into town. Mugen pretended to sleep, but found himself watching Fuu through half-closed eyes. She would get this stupid, hopeful look on her face whenever she heard even the smallest noise outside.

When Jin finally returned – carefully hiding a cut on his neck from her, Mugen noticed – Fuu seemed to forget the way she’d been pacing and worrying and screamed at him for staying gone so long.

“Shut up, bitch, I’m trying to sleep,” Mugen grumbled. It was the sudden tension in the air, more than the sound of katana leaving scabbard, that had him on his feet in a defensive stance, sword in hand.

“Don’t call her that,” Jin said evenly. His tone was so disinterested he could have been ordering one of his fancy teas.

Mugen bumped Jin’s katana with his own sword, more to irritate him than anything. “Finally ready for me to kill you then?”

Fuu had scrambled away when the swords came out, but now she thrust herself between them. “Jin! Mugen! You promised!” She tentatively laid her hands on their blades. The slightest flick of Mugen’s wrist could have cut her palm wide open. He stayed carefully still. “Jin,” she added. “It’s all right.” She used a soft voice Mugen had never heard before. He wondered if Jin had. He remembered Jin catching her that morning.

Jin lowered his sword and Mugen reluctantly did, too. He’d been ready to get this over with.

When he was comfortably sprawled by the fire again he couldn’t resist asking, “So how’d you get that cut on your neck?”

Fuu’s anxious squawking proved to be the perfect lullaby.

()()()()()

During the Plum Festival, Jin found them work in a crowded teahouse, but when he brought Mugen and Fuu back, the proprietor barred the door to Mugen.

“Not you. Island trash will scare my customers away.” At Fuu’s protests the proprietor sniffed, “Not even in the kitchens. I’ll lose my reputation.”

Mugen merely shrugged. Not like he especially wanted to wash dishes for a night.

“Get out before anyone sees you,” the proprietor hissed. Mugen could have killed the guy, but instead he decided to just walk away. Let those two make some money and eat. He’d seen a brightly lit casino near the market, anyway.

He was surprised to hear Fuu’s familiar steps behind him. She was tugging on his sleeve again. He couldn’t seem to break her of that habit, but he pulled roughly away from her all the same, hoping it might take this time.

“He shouldn’t have said that,” she said, falling in behind him. “He doesn’t know you, is all.”

Mugen didn’t turn around. “Would you have let me wash dishes in your restaurant?” That was rhetorical, of course. Rhetorical being one of Jin’s million ryu words and, as Mugen had found, a polite way of insinuating “Shut up, and leave me the hell alone.”

“You wouldn’t have worked for us,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice. “We couldn’t afford to feed you, much less pay you.”

Mugen grunted. He heard her steps falter.

“But anyway,” she went on brightly. “I’m not going to work for that bigot. I’m coming with you. So wait up!”

Mugen stopped in the middle of the street, still not looking at her. “Don’t do me any favors, bitch.” He finally looked over his shoulder at her. Her lip was trembling. Or that could have been the flashing lights. He didn’t care. He didn’t. “That guy back there was going to pay you for easy work. You’re stupid if you walk away from that.”

“Don’t call me that,” he heard her say in a small voice.

“What, ‘stupid’?”

“Bitch.”

“Then don’t act like one.”

The casino had a hawker posted outside. He was shouting, “Games of chance, games of chance! Try your luck!”

“I don’t understand you, Mugen,” Fuu said behind him. “I was trying to…”

Ignoring her, he exaggeratedly scratched his armpit.

“Oh, never mind!” she yelled. Then he heard the sound of her ridiculous sandals running away.

“Games of chance!” The hawker yelled again. “Try your luck!”

()()()()()

He caught Jin kissing Fuu on a riverbank. To be fair, they expected him to be gone all day. He thought about drawing on Jin, saying some shit like how he was “dishonoring the lady.” Something like Jin’s type said if they’d caught him kissing one of their women. The thought was so comical that he laughed out loud.

“Mugen!” Fuu exclaimed, her face coloring.

Jin merely pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked out over the water.

Mugen fluttered a hand at them. “Sorry about that. Did I interrupt before you could get some?”

No swords this time. Jin merely glanced at him and then back out to the river. Fuu nearly tripped over the gravel on the bank as she ran away.

“Something I said?” Mugen asked, as nonchalantly as possible. He threw the sack of food he’d brought back down in the middle of their camp and began to cook. As he’d known they would, both Jin and Fuu wandered back by the time dinner began to burn.

In some tacit agreement Fuu and Jin sat across the fire from one another, barely speaking as they ate their oden. Mugen watched them sneak quick looks at one another and share meaningful silences and all that other stuff that people did when they were too chicken-shit to just come out and say what they really wanted. Fuu included him in her glances and silences too but he ignored her every single time she looked over at him.

 When the meal was almost gone and nobody had said a word, Mugen couldn’t stand it anymore.

 “So, you guys fucking?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if it was the question or the fact that he’d asked it with his mouth full that earned him such irate glares from those two.

“Chew with your mouth closed,” Fuu finally said, pursing her lips primly.

He stuck his tongue out at her. It was a gesture so childish that even he hadn’t contemplated it in years. “Make me…” He paused for a beat before adding, “Bitch.”

Mugen was disappointed when no katana appeared between his eyes. He felt like fighting. Sticky adrenaline zinged through his body, and he flexed his toes and stretched his neck to allow some of the excess energy to dissipate. Even that didn’t work. He sprang to his feet.

“I’ll just uh…” He winked at Jin. “…Take a walk then.” He’d meant to leave Fuu with a last leer, but when he looked down at her she had that look on her face, like on the night she’d been so worried about Jin, and the lusty expression wouldn’t come. Instead he found himself just looking at her. Then, scowling, he kicked a log further into the fire with his geta. Fuu gave a little yelp and cringed away from the shower of sparks.

His walk brought him back to the last village they’d passed through. The place was so small they didn’t have a proper brothel, only a row of stalls where the whores waited on a wooden bench behind a short curtain. Five koban bought you fifteen minutes. If it was a busy night and if you had to wait in line, you could watch the feet of the guys who’d gone before you. The more their ankles wobbled the closer they were to letting you have your turn.

It wasn’t a busy night. The girl was young – too young for that place. She looked at the tattoos on his wrists with interest the whole time he fucked her. When he finished, he unstrapped his sword from his back and took it half out of its scabbard to let her have a look at that, too. Out of instinct, he grabbed her wrist when she reached for it, but she the look on her face was so stupid and hopeful that he guided her hand and let her touch the hilt, then the blade. They didn’t share a common language but he thought the words she said before he left sounded like thanks. It didn’t sit well on his mind – a whore thanking him.

When he returned to camp Jin and Fuu were both on their mats, sleeping as far apart as possible while still remaining within the circle of firelight. Her hair coming loose from its tie, Fuu clutched her tanto to her chest. On his side of the fire, Jin’s katana lay like a sentinel between him and the sleeping girl, sending a message that even an illiterate like Mugen could read loud and clear.

()()()()()

Mugen intercepted no more guilty kisses. Whether that was because there were no more or because he purposefully avoided sneaking up on those two, he would never know.

In the next town where they managed to buy rooms, a merchant wearing a heavy gold bracelet saw him use his sword to cut down some would-be thieves and instantly offered him a job guarding a caravan back to Edo.

“How much?” Mugen toed a line in the muddy road with his sandal as they dickered over terms. He’d never been good at this kind of thing – battling with words. The merchant had a daughter, and the old man saw Mugen looking at her where she sat in his carriage. “She is to be married in Edo,” he admonished sharply, his gold bracelet waving in Mugen’s face. Mugen could have had that bracelet and the daughter, too, but there was Fuu tugging on his sleeve again.

“What are you doing?”

Mugen didn’t answer her. Behind him, he heard the caravan horses stamping the ground. “That’s my last offer,” the merchant was saying. “Stay or go.”

He silently watched Fuu dig something out of her purse.

She held a silver coin out to him. “You promised, remember?”

He let her drag him away by the sleeve. It had been raining and there was mud on her feet from where she’d ran too fast, chasing him.

So he guessed he was stuck with her now. She probably shouldn’t be wandering around alone in a place like this. There was a reason that merchant guy was hiring guards, after all. She let go of his sleeve, apparently so she could have both hands free for fidgeting.

“That thing with Jin…” she began.

Mugen glanced at her. She was looking down, measuring her steps carefully along the rutted road.

“It was just that once,” she said. “I’m sorry you saw us.” With more force she said, “I didn’t mean for you to see.”

Mugen grunted. With the way she was looking at him – same stupid look – she seemed to want more than that, so he added, “Whatever.”

Then she got crazy.

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings,” she said.

The words hung in the air between them. His eyes flickered sideways, looked at her disbelieving.

“Hurt my feelings? What the hell? You can’t ‘hurt my feelings,’ you dumb bitch.” She gasped at his tone. _There._ _Who’s feelings are hurt now?_

She grabbed his arm this time, not his sleeve. His sword arm. Despite all they’d been through, her hands were still soft on his bare skin. His calluses would catch on skin like that. Even the little whore from a few towns back had had palms scarred from work when she’d finished him off.

He jerked away from her. “That’s my sword arm. Bitch.”

She flinched again, but planted herself in front of him anyway. They were attracting stares for passersby but, just to prove Mugen’s point about the town, nobody moved to interfere with a crude, dirty guy with a sword muttering profanities at a beautiful-looking girl in a fancy flowered kimono.

Mugen had never once tasted sugar. On the colony, they were entirely dependent on the Satsuma government for food, and sugar was considered too dear a luxury for a pack of criminals. He never once saw a granule of sugar during their raid on the sugar ship, though he’d “died” for it. Afterward, he wouldn’t have touched the stuff even if someone pinched his nose and forced it down his throat.

Because nothing can be too good for you if you’ve never wanted it anyway.

But when Fuu stepped up and kissed him, there on some dead-end street in some town he’d never know the name of, all he could think was that now he knew what sugar tasted like.

He let it go on far too long before he managed to pull away, growling. “Don’t touch me.”

She ran then. Miraculously, she managed to avoid tripping over her ridiculous sandals.

()()()()()

“You’re back!”

Mugen’s eyes flew open, though she wasn’t talking to him and hadn’t in two days.

Jin’s shadow fell over his bedroll.

“Shut the door, I’m sleeping,” Mugen grumbled.

“We have to go,” Jin said firmly. Mugen started to argue, just for the sake of arguing, but by now he had to admit that Jin usually had a good reason for his sudden urges.

That was how they found themselves stumbling over roots on the Nagasaki Road in the middle of the night. They’d worn out their welcome in that last town, was all Jin would say. Well, and that it was too dangerous for a light.

About an hour before dawn, a large contingent of men on horses bearing lanterns appeared. To Mugen’s surprise, Fuu followed him when the three of them scattered. Clinging to his sleeve for balance, of course. He should have burned those stupid sandals last time they had a proper fire. He should find her some geta, or make her toughen up those soft little feet.

It was that time of night when the stars are fading into a purple sky, and shadows could be tricky things. He let her follow him through the trees, hoping the sound of the stream that followed the road would muffle any noises she clumsily made.

“Watch for frogs,” he whispered snidely. That earned him a sharp pinch on the elbow.

Just their luck, the horses stopped at the point where they’d left the road.

An assessment of “Looks like some brush has been disturbed here” carried to their position.

Mugen eased between the road and Fuu, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He didn’t draw yet, in case the metal caught the lantern light. But they soon heard the men tramping through the brush on the other side of the road, in the direction Jin had gone.

He felt Fuu’s urgent squeeze on his arm, but Mugen motioned for her to settle down. If they’d found Jin’s trail over the two of theirs, it likely meant that Jin was luring them that way. Once again, the samurai would have all the fun. But oh well, Mugen had caught a glimpse of their pursuers in their own lamplight, and they didn’t look like much more than farmers anyway. He wondered idly what Jin had done.

“They’re looking for the woman,” Fuu whispered.

“Eh?”

“She went across the river to the Divorce Temple but the brothel guards don’t know that. They think Jin still has her.”

“We’re stopping to rescue whores from brothels now?”

“Jin is,” Fuu said tightly.

Then Mugen said something that he didn’t think he’d ever said before. “Then it sounds like that’s his fight then.” At Fuu’s incredulous look he added, “I’m going back to sleep. Keep watch, why don’t you?”

He settled with his back against a tree, leaving her no choice but to stay there or trip in the dark somewhere and break her neck.

Usually, Mugen could sleep anywhere, under any circumstances, but this time sleep wouldn’t come. He looked up and saw Fuu watching him. She may have had that stupid, hopeful look on her face, but then again, shadows are tricky things just before dawn.

“What do you want?” he asked. He’d meant to sound gruff, but was irritated to realize that he hadn’t sounded gruff at all.

She was hugging her knees to her chest, the point of her chin resting on one of the flowers on her kimono.

“I just want you to be nice to me.”

When he remained silent, she babbled on. “No more name calling, no more yelling at me, no more signing on to guard caravans when I leave you alone for even a second. We had a deal. The three of us.”

“Being nice to you wasn’t in the deal.”

“So I was thinking you could do it out of the goodness of your heart. You know, maybe go a little beyond the call of duty?”

He just stared at her. “I don’t do anything out of the goodness of my heart. When I do things, it’s because there’s something in it for me.”

She was looking at her sandals. Her voice sounded sad. “There could be something in it for you…”

That was wrong, coming from her. It was like when the little whore thanked him for letting her touch his sword.

He stood, uncaring of the men pursuing them, their lanterns still bobbing farther and farther away from them on the other side of the road. Still huddled on the ground, fear suddenly widened Fuu’s eyes, and Mugen was viciously satisfied to see it there.

“Is that really what you want?”

He saw her swallow.

“You want someone like me to touch you? Is that what you mean?” Whispering didn’t temper the heat behind the words. “You seen where I come from. You seen the people I killed.” He crossed his wrists in front of him. “These tattoos ain’t for decoration, bitch.”

The word seemed to steel her spine. She straightened, then stood.  They were inches apart. And the shadows must have been playing tricks again because her eyes were showing him something he’d never in a thousand lifetimes expected to see there.

“Don’t call me that.”

“All right. Cunt.”

She flinched.

He couldn’t stop now. “Why are you standing so close to me? You want this dick up your pussy? Don’t you want to know where it’s been first? Last week I was in a stall sticking it in a girl that couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. Twelve years old. And do you want to know why I stood around for thirty minutes waiting for her to free up? Because she looked just exactly fucking like you.”

Her hand went to her hair. She was about to play with the tail of her bun like she always did when she was buying time, he knew. He knew that because he knew her. He knew her much too well.

Something compelled him to grab her wrist before she could complete the nervous gesture.

"If that's what you want, you tell me now. 'Cause I'll do it."

She placed the palm of her free hand on his chest, her fingers clutching at him. And there she was looking up at him again. Looking like _that._   The sun was halfway up now, and he wasn't sure he could reasonably blame those tricky shadows anymore. When she spoke again, her voice was full of the tears that never showed in her eyes.

"I just want you to be... kind to me. And I'll be kind to you, too."

Mugen abruptly let go of her wrist.  "There's nothing kind about what I want."

He was so tense that even her light touch on his shoulder ached. Her thumb rested uncertainly on the ridge of his collarbone.

"It could be," she said simply.  And she looked at him. Right in the eye.

The first time they'd kissed -- and yeah, he thought about it -- she was the one that kissed him.  She'd surprised him, was all.  That's the only way he ever would have let that happen.

Because when Mugen wanted something, he took it.

So he took it.

And there was that taste again.  That was why people craved sugar, he knew. Because the sweetness was almost overpowering.  With sugar on your tongue, you could forget those other tastes -- ashes and salt and blood. 

  
Even if that was all you'd tasted for years.

He was clumsy, suddenly, and her hair came unbound in his hands.  Even after months of washing in river water, out of all the women's' hair that had ever spilled over his palms, Fuu's was the softest.  He found himself being very careful not to pull it.  
  
He found himself being very careful altogether.  
  
Her arms went around his neck, tentatively.  She was trembling, and probably not because of the pursuers, who had by now disappeared over a rise in the far distance.  
  
Just like before, she kissed with her eyes closed.  Watching the way her lashes rested on her cheeks, Mugen's hands slid down the silky material at her back, finally resting on her hips.  He'd done this a thousand times with no qualms whatsoever, but  -- just this once -- it took him a second to muster his courage before he could reach down and cup the curve of her ass. She gasped against his mouth when he did. He wondered briefly if he was the first to touch her like that.  It was more than the kiss that kept him from asking.  Mugen had learned long ago there are some things you're just better off not knowing. 

But her kiss with Jin on the river bank had been chaste, clean. He tightened his grip, pulling their hips together.  There was nothing clean about this.

He ended the kiss. Not looking her in the eye, he slowly pushed the kimono off of one shoulder.  
  
She reflexively reached to straighten it, then stopped, her hand dropping to her side.  
  
"Will we...?"  She sounded so incredibly young.

It would take one more small gesture, just a swipe of his hand, to slide the kimono down off the other shoulder. The obi would be nothing, just a tug and there would be no barrier between what he wanted and what she claimed she was offering.  He wanted to, and he didn't want to. Maybe it was because she had that look on her face again, and this time he didn't think she looked stupid at all.

"We will," he wanted to say. Or, "We shouldn't." But that wasn't what came out.

"I ain't never been kind." 

She nodded. Then she took a step back and slipped the kimono off her other shoulder.

The obi came loose just as easily as he’d expected. When it was off, he looked down at the way he'd crumpled part of it in his fist.

Mugen actively fought against contemplativeness. He believed thinking too much was dangerous. It telegraphed your actions. But in that moment, he had a realization of sorts about his life and the way he’d lived it.  On a fundamental level, Mugen had always known that when something is writhing under you, you own it. When you can hurt it, you make it yours.

So he wasn’t good enough to run a soapy cloth over the knife that cut some rich guy’s meat? Look at him now, with this classy girl’s tits in his hands. 

He was about to fuck her, he knew. And when he did, he’d be fucking that restaurant guy just as much. And that merchant with the caravan, and his ugly daughter. He’d be fucking Mukuro, and Kohza, and the governor who ruled that hell where they all grew up.  With his dick in Fuu’s pussy, he’d also be sticking it to Jin and his impeccable breeding and those barely hidden looks of disgust on his face.

And that was just too many people to fuck when all he wanted was her.

Mugen reached down and righted Fuu's kimono.

He guessed he was in love with her or something.

She tied her own obi while he asked, "You'd do anything to find that sunflower guy, wouldn't you?"

She pulled the belt tight. "Anything."

"Then we should probably get on with it. Come on." Over his shoulder, he added, "Bitch."

He caught her eye. She smiled.


End file.
